Tragedy Redefined

Here is a hilarious post by Prem Panicker in his blog Smoke Signals on US President George Bush teaching elementary school children the meaning of the word tragedy.

The Amicalola Falls

Georgia has several beautiful state parks full of lush green hiking trails, nature views and lively rivers, streams, and waterfalls. One such state park is the Amicalola state park in Dawsonville, Georgia. It is famous for the Amicalola Falls. Wikipedia tells me that the name Amicalola means, "tumbling waters" in Cherokee language, the language of native Americans in this region. The state park is situated in the Appalachian mountains that line the eastern side of the continent of North America, from southeastern Canada, to Northern Georgia.

We set out to visit this state park to see the falls, late morning on one sunny Saturday. It is about 80 miles from Atlanta (midtown, where we live), which would be about an hour and a half drive. The state park was pretty busy with several visitors, couples young and old, and children of all ages. We parked the car in the parking lot and picked up a map of hiking trails to the falls from the visitor center. However simple a trail might seem, a map of the area is highly useful. The person at the help desk in the visitor center pointed out two trails that we could take to reach the falls, the Base of Falls trail or the Creek Trail which eventually joins the Base of Falls trail. We decided to take the round about Creek trail. The Creek trail starts at a point where the Amicalola river is a small, quiet little stream. As we walked on, the stream started getting wider, bouncier, and more energetic. When we started the hike, we could not tell that we would be climbing a mountain apart from the stress of moving on steep and bumpy areas. After some distance of walking on the trail, we could see the parking lot where we parked our car. We had come up several feet on the mountain. The stream now seemed far below. Its sound was barely audible. It was a hot sunny afternoon, but we hardly felt the sun on the trail as it was covered and shaded with a variety of trees all around including some beautiful flowering trees in places.

After a 0.7 miles hike on the Creek trail, we reached the starting point of the Base of the Falls trail. We continued on this trail which was another 0.3 miles. This was a tough trail (for me surely), pretty steep! At the end of this trail we could get a clear view of the falls, but to get a better view and closer view of the falls there were 175 steps to a wide wooden bridge. From the bridge, the falls looked majestic and beautiful with water sparkling against the rays of the sun and flowing down into the gorge below and further into a stream. They were in fact multiple falls falling down the same gorge. Opposite the falls, far away, we could see the Appalachian mountain range. We rested for a short while at the falls enjoying the cool breeze from the gushing cool water. Further there are 475 more steps to the top of the mountain from where you can see the top of the falls and a scenic view of the Appalachians in Georgia.

Up we climbed all the way. We were already quite exhausted with all the hiking and the climbing. Another 475 steps did seem pretty daunting. There were landings with benches at every 70-100 steps where we could stop and rest a bit. Just as we started after a small break at one of the landings, a kid came down hopping and jumping down the stairs. He asked “Have you been to the top yet?” We said no, we are on our way up. “You must go, it is just awesome!” he said with a huge smile and his eyes sparkling with excitement as if he discovered the most wonderful thing in the world. The kid’s words were quite an energy booster. I too was excited to get to the top and get the “awesome” view. We climbed straight up with no more breaks.

The viewpoint was really “awesome”. We could see a much clearer view of the Appalachians and a wider range of the mountains too. The sun was shining over the mountains, painting them in different shades of pale yellow to golden yellow to emerald green in various places. The soft clouds hovering over some of the higher mountains gave the whole view a mystic look. Looking down from the viewpoint we could see the top of the falls. The water source of the falls was a small stream flowing over an almost flat area of the mountain that suddenly chipped in to form a steep gorge. That is what formed the falls.

We rested by the stream at the top of the mountain for quite some time enjoying the view of the Appalachians in front of us. Once we were all relaxed, we set back again for our journey down the mountain. We did not want to leave yet but we needed to reach to the base and get back on the highway back home before it was dark. The climb down the stairs was pretty easy. After the first flight of stairs, instead of going down the second flight of stairs and then back through the Base of the Falls trail, we decided to take another trail that started there to the foot of the mountains, called West Ridge trail. The West Ridge trail is unique as in, it is built using recycled rubber tyres. It looks just like any other tar road, but it is actually made with 100% recycled material and covered using recycled tyres.

The route to the foot of the mountains starting from the West Ridge trail went through several winding trails. One of them, the Spring trail, true to its name, had beautiful white flowers all along the route. Looking down on the trail, the whole mountain valley along it was covered with those flowers. A couple, that was hiking without a map in hand, was waiting at one point on the trails, for some company that had a map to guide so that they don’t get lost. They joined us midway. We followed the route in the map and after a hiking through series of trails of 1 mile, joined the Creak trail. The couple and we broke up at this point and we continued down the Creak trail to the foot of the mountains. The couple went in the direction of the Base of the Falls trail. We reached foot of the hills, and drove back home after a stressful, but beautiful hike.